A chill, non-violent city builder. Your city being mobile allows for some novel management twists; you can fly your city across an expansive map to gather specific resources, recruit citizens, and visit surface towns. While I had hoped for a bit more depth in its systems, I found the experience very enjoyable overall.

The building aspects of management are simple but fun. Your city requires lift to remain airborne, and propulsion to move forward. Everything you build adds weight and drag that counter these, and uneven building practices can tilt your whole city, decreasing both propulsion and citizen happiness. Some buildings add positive or negative modifiers to the ones surrounding it, so experimenting with layout is the name of the game.

Most buildings require citizens to function; these citizens can be recruited from settlements or earned as quest rewards. Each citizen requires food, water, and housing, and as your city grows, more citizen needs (Faith, Health, and Comfort) are introduced one at a time.

Unlike many city builders, Airborne Kingdom is mainly campaign-driven. Your three goals are:
1. Remain airborne.
2. Recruit 150 citizens.
3. Unite the 12 surface kingdoms.

This third objective makes up the bulk of the campaign. As you explore the skies, you'll come across kingdoms in need of help. Many require certain resources, while some ask of you to explore ruins or track down lost search parties. The tasks are basic, but the strong writing and personality of each kingdom are engaging enough to encourage their completion. Plus, winning over a kingdom will net you extra citizens and permanent resource boosts.

While the game is exceptionally beautiful, performance hitches are not uncommon. Once you reach 200 citizens (which I did well before the end of the campaign) you are notified that further recruitment may negatively impact performance. There are a few graphics options to help with this, such as replacing animated citizen models with simple pawns, but I found that they didn't help for long. Eventually I turned every graphical setting to low or off, but did not notice much improvement in performance.

More complex cities impact performance dramatically. I chose not to play the free Tundra DLC simply because the game couldn't handle the sheer awesomeness of my kingdom. I'd like to come back to it eventually, provided these problems are resolved.

On three occasions my airship's shadow began strobing sporadically. A hard restart fixed this each time.

Beautiful atmosphere and music, and a sleek and lovely UI make for a mostly friction-free experience. I had issues with a few hotkeys (Z to move buildings during construction mode was especially inconsistent), and found it frustrating that bringing up in-game menus did not pause the game in the background (since you burn through resources even while idle).

Playing at a leisurely pace, I reached 150 citizens in about 8 hours, and united the kingdoms by hour 12.
There is a free DLC area I have yet to explore due to the technical issues mentioned previously, but I plan on coming back to it once those are hopefully sorted.

I found Airborne Kingdom well worth the price of entry. While the experience as it stands is a bit simple, I see the seeds of amazing ideas here. A sequel with deeper systems and mechanics would be an instant buy for me.

A chill, non-violent city builder. Your city being mobile allows for some novel management twists; you can fly your city across an expansive map to gather specific resources, recruit citizens, and visit surface towns. While I had hoped for a bit more depth in its systems, I found the experience very enjoyable overall. [h1]Core Mechanics[/h1] The building aspects of management are simple but fun. Your city requires lift to remain airborne, and propulsion to move forward. Everything you build adds weight and drag that counter these, and uneven building practices can tilt your whole city, decreasing both propulsion and citizen happiness. Some buildings add positive or negative modifiers to the ones surrounding it, so experimenting with layout is the name of the game. Most buildings require citizens to function; these citizens can be recruited from settlements or earned as quest rewards. Each citizen requires food, water, and housing, and as your city grows, more citizen needs (Faith, Health, and Comfort) are introduced one at a time. [h1]Objectives and Gameplay[/h1] Unlike many city builders, Airborne Kingdom is mainly campaign-driven. Your three goals are: 1. Remain airborne. 2. Recruit 150 citizens. 3. Unite the 12 surface kingdoms. This third objective makes up the bulk of the campaign. As you explore the skies, you'll come across kingdoms in need of help. Many require certain resources, while some ask of you to explore ruins or track down lost search parties. The tasks are basic, but the strong writing and personality of each kingdom are engaging enough to encourage their completion. Plus, winning over a kingdom will net you extra citizens and permanent resource boosts. [h1]Technical Quality[/h1] While the game is exceptionally beautiful, performance hitches are not uncommon. Once you reach 200 citizens (which I did well before the end of the campaign) you are notified that further recruitment may negatively impact performance. There are a few graphics options to help with this, such as replacing animated citizen models with simple pawns, but I found that they didn't help for long. Eventually I turned every graphical setting to low or off, but did not notice much improvement in performance. More complex cities impact performance dramatically. I chose not to play the free Tundra DLC simply because the game couldn't handle the sheer awesomeness of my kingdom. I'd like to come back to it eventually, provided these problems are resolved. On three occasions my airship's shadow began strobing sporadically. A hard restart fixed this each time. [h1]Presentation[/h1] Beautiful atmosphere and music, and a sleek and lovely UI make for a mostly friction-free experience. I had issues with a few hotkeys (Z to move buildings during construction mode was especially inconsistent), and found it frustrating that bringing up in-game menus did not pause the game in the background (since you burn through resources even while idle). [h1]Replay Value[/h1] Playing at a leisurely pace, I reached 150 citizens in about 8 hours, and united the kingdoms by hour 12. There is a free DLC area I have yet to explore due to the technical issues mentioned previously, but I plan on coming back to it once those are hopefully sorted. I found Airborne Kingdom well worth the price of entry. While the experience as it stands is a bit simple, I see the seeds of amazing ideas here. A sequel with deeper systems and mechanics would be an instant buy for me.